‘Obamacare’ first seen in print in March 2007

Who originated the term “Obamacare” for the Affordable Health Care Act?

Elspeth Reeve, a writer for The
Atlantic’s Wire blog, in 2011 traced the first printed use of the term,
via the database LexisNexis,
to an article by lobbyist Jeanne Schulte Scott.

“The many would-be candidates for president in 2008 are falling over themselves offering their own proposals,” Scott wrote
in the journal Healthcare Financial Management in March 2007.

“We will soon see a ‘Giuliani-care’ and ‘Obama-care’ to go along with ‘McCain-care,’ ‘Edwards-care,’ and a totally revamped
and remodeled ‘Hillary-care’ from the 1990s.”

Columnists, bloggers and headline writers also began using the term at about the same time, as did politicians.

According to NBC News, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, visiting Des Moines, Iowa, on May 30, 2007, used the term:

“I’ve watched with interest these last
few days, watching the Democrats come out with their plans on health
care. They don’t
understand. The path of Europe is not the way to go. Socialized
medicine, Hillary-care, Obama-care, they don’t get it. The
best way to make health care work is to make health care more like
a market and with the dynamics of a public market. That’s
the way to go.”

“Obamacare” first appeared in the American Press
on May 12, 2008, in an Associated Press story. “Call it Obamacare or
call it Clintoncare. But don’t call it ‘socialized medicine,’
” begins the article, an analysis piece by AP writer Kevin
Freking.

Online: www.thewire.com/politics/2011/10/who-coined-obamacare/44183.

La. ranked 45th in ’13 for no-call complaints

The Informer on Wednesday offered information on no-call lists to a reader bedeviled by phone solicitations. As a follow-up,
today’s column will offer some figures to provide some context.

According to the Federal Trade Commission’s latest National Do Not Call Registry Data Book, the national no-call list contained
223.4 million phone numbers on Sept. 30, the end of fiscal year 2013.

The FTC, the report says, received 3.7 million complaints from consumers that year.

Louisiana phone numbers accounted for 2,769,982 million of those in the national registry, and the FTC says it received 42,350
complaints from Louisianians.

Most of those complaints, 10,380, came from people in the 504 area code, which had 646,686 numbers on the list as of Sept.
30.

The 2013 figures for the state’s other area codes:

318 — 629,181 numbers; 8,760 complaints.

225 — 506,170 numbers; 8,484 complaints.

337 — 547,256 numbers; 7,015 complaints.

985 — 440,689 numbers; 6,836 complaints.

Online: www.ftc.gov.

The Informer answers questions from readers each Sunday, Monday and Wednesday. It is researched and written by Andrew Perzo, an American Press staff writer. To ask a question, call 494-4098 and leave voice mail, or email informer@americanpress.com.